The universities minister David Willetts has been criticised after making comments that appear to blame educated working women for the lack of jobs available to aspiring working class men.

Willetts said feminism was probably the "single biggest factor" for the lack of social mobility in Britain, because women who would otherwise have been housewives had taken university places and well-paid jobs that could have gone to ambitious working-class men. The Conservative minister made his comments before the launch of the government's social mobility strategy next week. Looking at reasons for social mobility, he said: "The feminist revolution in its first round effects was probably the key factor. Feminism trumped egalitarianism. It is not that I am against feminism, it's just that is probably the single biggest factor."

He expounded the downsides of the "admirable transformation of opportunities for women" by suggesting opening up education since the 1960s had magnified social divides, courtesy of "assortative mating" whereby well-educated women marry well-educated men.

"It is delicate territory, because it is not a bad thing that women had these opportunities," he said. "But it widened the gap in household incomes, because you suddenly had two-earner couples, both of whom were well-educated, compared with often workless households where nobody was educated."

Yvette Cooper, the shadow equalities minister, who has warned that the government's cuts will hit women hardest, called on Willetts to withdraw his comments. "The idea that working women are responsible for persistent child poverty or youth unemployment in disadvantaged areas is just shocking. David Willetts should quickly withdraw this rubbish and face up to the real problems his policies are causing for young people and women who want to get on."

Sarah Veale, the TUC's head of equality and employment rights, said: "It's disappointing to hear this Neanderthal take on our current unemployment crisis coming from a minister serving in the current government. If ministers want clues as to what has held 'working men' back, they should look to their predecessors in the 1980s, hardly a golden age for equal rights, who oversaw the sharp decline of manufacturing and other key industries."

However, journalist Cristina Odone, blogging on the Telegraph site, said Willetts was right to suggest feminists were responsible for the plight of working class men. "But not because they have stolen their jobs. Feminists – or at least the kind that have gained the upper hand in this varied movement – have undermined working class men with their philosophy that all males are expendable ... This man-hatred has not only been taught, it has been rewarded: successive Labour governments have satisfied the feminists in their ranks by conceiving a benefits system that rewards single mothers who don't let the father of their children live under the same roof."